Sean Bell - America is Racist

Seventeen months to the day since the November 25, 2006 shooting of Sean Bell, a queens judge found three undercover detectives involved not guilty on all charges today (April 24).

Detectives Michael Olive and Gescard Isnora who faced the most charges, were both acquitted on first and second degree manslaughter, which carries a possible sentence of 25 years in prison.

They were also acquitted of first and second degree felony assault, and reckless endangerment. Detective Marc Cooper was also acquitted on the two count of reckless endangerment he was charged with.

"The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network expressed today its profound dismay in the wake of the not guilty verdicts for the New York City police officers who were involved in the killing of Sean Bell," HSAN President and CEO Dr. Benjamin Chavis told AllHipHop.com. "Hip-Hop is an inclusive cultural phenomenon that represents the highest aspirations of all youth of the human family. The injustice that is so evident in the case of Sean Bell reminds us of the old America at a time when millions of young people are raising their voices and votes for a new America. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon, but unfortunately, the system of justice, particularly in New York City, appears to be incapable of rendering equal justice without the taint of racial bias and prejudice."

The verdict came in just after 9:00 am, after nearly two weeks of deliberation.

The detectives opted out of a trial by jury and instead the seven weeks of testimony was heard by State Supreme Court Justice Arthur J Cooperman.

"This case was not about justice. This case was about the police officers having the right to act above the law… Justice was not here today. This court is obviously bankrupt of justice when it comes to people of color," added Leroy Gadsden of the NAACP.

According to Judge Cooperman, he had a hard time finding the testimony of the victims credible. "The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified" in shooting the victims, Cooperman said.

"What happened in that case is a f***ing travesty," outspoken Atlanta rapper Killer Mike told AllHipHop.com. "What is the police trying to force the underclass to do? The police maintain jobs when they have something to police. By agitating the people you just create a bigger need for police. So instead of the police protecting and serving the community, the community becomes a commodity for the police force."

Steele of pioneering Hip-Hop duo Smif-N-Wessun expressed his anger with the verdict, as well as the police.

"There’s a war against us waged by the so-called powers that be and their first infantry are these murderous pigs they use to keep us in place by harassment and murder," Steele said. "We must stand together and defend ourselves and be smart. We are all under surveillance. It’s time to stand up."

Sean Bell, 23, was killed in the early morning hours of November 25, 2006 after leaving Kalua, a Queens strip club where he'd just wrapped up his bachelor party.

An NYPD undercover investigation unit looking to make arrests in their prostitution case witnessed an argument between one of Bells friends and another man.

Detective Isnora told the grand jury that he believed that Bells friend Joseph Guzman was going to get a gun out of Bells car.

That's when he followed the men and called for back up. Bell, along with his two friends Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield got into his Nissan Altima.

Then with Bell behind the wheel, officers approached the and drew their weapons without identifying themselves as police, according to the testimony of Guzman and Benefield.

Detective Oliver the only one who reloaded his 9mm semi automatic weapon firing 31 shots, while Detective Isnora let off 11 shots, and Detective Cooper fired 4.

No gun was found in Bells car. Dr. Chavis urged the Hip-Hop community to remain calm and channel any anger into positive, constructive energy to bring forth change.

"The anger and disgust that the Hip-Hop community certainly feels today should not be permitted to develop into anything negative, as a response," Dr. Chavis noted. "Sean Bell's death will not be in vain, to the extent to which millions of youth work even harder to demand equal justice, and to fundamentally change the current system of injustice."

f*ck the police -

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Nicole Paultre Bell bolted from the courtroom Friday as a judge acquitted three New York City detectives of all charges in the shooting death of her fiance.

"I've got to get out of here," Paultre Bell said.
Justice Arthur Cooperman was announcing the verdict clearing Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell.

Detective Marc Cooper was cleared of reckless endangerment.

"What we saw in court today was not a miscarriage of justice," the Rev. Al Sharpton said on his radio program.

"Justice didn't miscarry," he said. "This was an abortion of justice. Justice was aborted."

Sharpton, who has been advising Bell's family, had called for calm Wednesday.

Bell, 23, died in November 2006 in a 50-bullet barrage -- 31 fired by Oliver -- hours before he was to be married. Two of his companions were wounded in the gunfire outside a Queens nightclub.

The three officers made brief statements more than four hours after the verdict.

"I want to say sorry to Bell family for the tragedy," Cooper said.

Isnora thanked the judge "for his fair and accurate decision today."

Oliver praised Cooperman "for a fair and just decision."
That's not how one community leader viewed it.
"This case was not about justice," declared Leroy Gadsden, chair of the police/community relations committee of the Jamaica Branch NAACP. "This case was about the police having a right to be above the law. If the law was in effect here, if the judge had followed the law truly, these officers would have been found guilty.

"This court, unfortunately, is bankrupt when it comes to justice for people of color."

Patrick Lynch, president of the New York Police Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said "there's no winners; there's no losers" in the case.

"We still have a death that occurred. We still have police officers that have to live with the fact that there was a death involved in their case," Lynch said.

But, he added, the verdict assured police officers that they will be treated fairly in New York's courts.
Many people outside the courthouse saw it differently.
Don't Miss

"You can't be proud of wearing that hat. You can't be proud of wearing that badge," a black woman shouted at a black police officer. "You must stop working for the masters! Stand down! Stop working for the masters!"
"Fifty shots is murder. I don't care what you say. That's what it is," another woman said. Watch the commotion outside the courthouse »
Despite the evident anger and a brief fistfight, the crowd remained generally orderly.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement saying, "An innocent man lost his life, a bride lost her groom, two daughters lost their father, and a mother and a father lost their son. No verdict could ever end the grief that those who knew and loved Sean Bell suffer."

However, he said, the legal system must be respected.
"America is a nation of laws, and though not everyone will agree with the verdicts and opinions issued by the courts, we accept their authority."

Bloomberg also said he had spoken briefly with Paultre Bell on Wednesday and agreed with her on the need to ensure that similar incidents would not occur in the future.

Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown echoed the mayor's sentiments.

"I accept his verdict, and I urge certainly that all fair-minded people in this city to the same," Brown said.

"The bottom line is that all of us working together -- the law enforcement community, our elected public officials, our individuals who are involved -- have got to make certain that that which occurred ... is never again repeated."

In announcing the verdict, Cooperman said he found problems with the prosecution's case. He said some prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves, and he cited prior convictions and incarcerations of witnesses.
"At times, the testimony just didn't make sense," Cooperman said, according to a transcript released by his office.

He also cited the demeanor of some witnesses on the stand. Bell was killed just before dawn on his wedding day, November 25, 2006. He and several friends were winding up an all-night bachelor party at the Kalua Club in Queens, a strip club that was under investigation by a NYPD undercover unit looking into complaints of guns, drugs and prostitution.
Undercover detectives were inside the club, and plainclothes officers were stationed outside.

Witnesses said that about 4 a.m., closing time, as Bell and his friends left the club, an argument broke out. Believing that one of Bell's friends, Joseph Guzman, was going to get a gun from Bell's car, one of the undercover detectives followed the men and called for backup.

What happened next was at the heart of the trial, prosecuted by the assistant district attorney in Queens.
Bell, Guzman and Trent Benefield got into the car, with Bell at the wheel. The detectives drew their weapons, said Guzman and Benefield, who testified that they never heard the plainclothes detectives identify themselves as police.

Bell was in a panic to get away from the armed men, his friends testified.

But the detectives thought Bell was trying to run down one of them, believed that their lives were in danger and started shooting, according to their lawyers.
A total of 50 bullets were fired by five NYPD officers. Only three were charged with crimes.

No gun was found near Bell or his friends.

Bishop T.D. Jakes responds to article on black church's role in the U.S. today

Editor's note: Bishop T.D. Jakes is founder and senior pastor of The Potter's House of Dallas, Texas, a multiracial, nondenominational church with more than 50 outreach ministries. CNN invited him to respond to a recent piece that appeared on CNN.com.

(CNN) -- "Bishop Jakes has always been a strong supporter of my father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the King family. Bishop Jakes, along with many other ministries of his ilk, all continue to convey the dream and the message of my father in the services they provide to oppressed people around the world. Some may say that the ministers of today have different techniques, but the core of the message and the goal remain the same." -- Martin Luther King III

I was stunned and very disappointed to see an article on CNN.com with the blaring headline, "Modern black church shuns King's message."

Even more disturbing to me than the headline was the article's depiction and generalization that I, through my church The Potter's House of Dallas, had shunned the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message.

The article's author asserts that "I declined to talk to him" about the subject, which is only partially true. I am sorry if my unavailability has caused him angst. I declined to speak with him because I already had conducted a very lengthy interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien on the very same topic for a piece that will air on CNN later this year.

Oddly, my picture was used to drive the article in spite of the fact that I was not interviewed for the story. I feel that this style of journalism is far beneath the standards that I have always known and respected from CNN, and while I traditionally do not respond or reply to such statements as were written, this time was different. Read the piece Jakes is criticizing

While I view this type of article as divisive in nature and tone, it does have one redeeming quality; it opens up a dialogue and allows for a spirited discussion on a very sensitive topic and issue. I applaud CNN on that front and thank the news organization for the opportunity to share my concerns and viewpoint.

There are very few people whom I admire more than King, and I have the utmost respect for his life, his work and his message. I have a longstanding relationship with the King family, as the above quote by Martin Luther King III states. My relationship with the King family extends back at least two generations.

Additionally, not only have I long been inspired by King's teachings, I remain inspired by his messages, and have used them as a foundation for so many of the programs our church has instituted, including but not limited to: our prison outreach program, our Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative as well as our continued and highly noted work with HIV/AIDS.

Our commitment to education, with the opening of a $14 million college prep school, Clay Academy, has prompted praise.

"Bishop T.D. Jakes is changing children and families by helping young people of all backgrounds and cultures achieve their purpose and potential. Clay Academy is an exceptional institution. The school helps students develop their faith, focus, and a foundation for the future. Emphasis is placed not only on encouraging students to strive for academic excellence, but also on providing opportunities for them to learn about love, life, and leadership," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Michigan, who also is chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Kilpatrick, who toured the school during a recent visit, was impressed with the facility and went on to say: "Clay Academy is an extension of Bishop Jakes' central message of hope and healing. He and the staff are developing generations of leaders who will understand that when we embrace our common humanity and work together, we can change the world."

Other examples of our work include economic development programs as well as our tireless efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in placing more than 2,000 survivors in homes.

Internationally, not only does our church build water wells in Africa, but it also has provided computer technology in Kenya and has partnered with Church World Service, Habitat for Humanity, World Vision and the Red Cross.

Additionally, I have a team of our staff researching a pending project in Haiti to address the tragic lack of food that has resulted in some pregnant mothers eating mud pies.

Most recently, I was in New York where I was honored to receive the Essence President's Award, which recognizes the writer whose work most reflects the vision of Essence magazine. While there, I also received the Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award from the Congress of Racial Equality for our work in promoting the dream of King's message.

Many people can talk the talk of King and his messages, but there are many who choose to focus on walking the walk. We walk the walk.

After 32 years of faithful service as a minister, we are most noted for the "Woman Thou Art Loosed" series, which focuses on empowerment to abused women -- not only preaching a message similar to that of the "Rev. Ike," as noted in the CNN.com article.

However, I do believe we have a responsibility to empower people economically, and at The Potter's House, we train our members on the basics of economic balance, such as reducing debts, achieving and maintaining good credit, and watching out for predatory lenders and other financial pitfalls. There is a great deal of difference between helping and teaching people to do well and exploiting the poor.

It has always been my goal and purpose to be a bridge builder and to not build walls. It is in that spirit that I would plead with the church to seek common ground rather than to focus on irrelevant and often erroneous information that seeks to divide.

I believe that King would want us to work toward helping our children who are not graduating from high school, much less college, in rampant numbers. We should use our diverse strengths and approach to ministry to combat HIV/AIDS, which is destroying many precious lives, and our own black women are disproportionately dying.

Roughly 50 percent of African-Americans do not even own their homes, and I think we have so much we could do together rather than keep score on who is winning a battle that shouldn't even exist between us.

In light of Alan Greenspan confirming what many of us have already suspected -- that we are in the midst of a recession, I would ask all churches as well as the media to help guide and encourage us through the storm of fuel bills, lost homes, lost jobs and the untold effects of this recession.

I see this article as providing a battle cry to churches of all ethnicities and denominations to not allow the perceptions of the few to distract us and prejudice us from the needs of the many.

On behalf of the 30,000 members of our church and the 4,000 volunteers who work in our various programs, not to mention the staff and our countless supporters around the world who love our church and its work, please do not malign our identity or castigate our mission.

In the final analysis of why people attend church or why they select this church over another one, or follow this minister over that minister, the answer is simple; people go to a church where they feel comfortable, where they feel their needs are being met and where they feel that they are getting assistance with the many issues that confront them in these troubled times.

source - http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/14/jakes/index.html

Dr. Martin Luther King's final crusade: The radical push for a new America NOW 2008

i hearby dedicate me and this forum to KING and his legacy, this is great news.

King's final crusade: The radical push for a new America

updated 23 minutes ago Monday, April 1, 2008 12:17 PM

By John Blake
CNN


(CNN) -- The Rev. Bernard LaFayette Jr. was resting at his Chicago, Illinois, home one autumn weekend in 1967 when the phone rang. The caller didn't identify himself, but LaFayette immediately recognized the baritone voice.


By the time Dr. King made his final trip to Memphis, he was planning the most radical campaign of his ministry.

"Bernard, I need you," the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said. "This may be my last campaign. We're going for broke."

Most Americans think of King as the "I Have a Dream" preacher at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. But the man who made his final trip to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 had become radical, scholars and activists say. King was gambling his legacy on a final crusade that was so revolutionary, it alarmed many of his closest advisers. Some became concerned about his emotional stability.

King called his crusade the Poor People's Campaign. He planned to march on Washington with a multiracial army of poor people who would build shantytowns at the Lincoln Memorial -- and paralyze the nation's capital if they had to.

The campaign's goal: force the federal government to withdraw funding for the Vietnam War and commit instead to abolishing poverty.

What King was saying by this time was even more provocative than what he planned. In his final presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he said the movement should address "the question of restructuring the whole of American society."

He called for a guaranteed annual wage for all able-bodied people, he urged the nationalization of some industries, and he told people to "question the capitalistic economy."

"It didn't cost the nation one penny to integrate lunch counters ... but now we are dealing with issues that cannot be solved without the nation spending billions of dollars and undergoing a radical redistribution of economic power," King said during a trip to Mississippi in February 1968.

The campaign was so risky that King told LaFayette, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference leader, during their phone call that he was going to appoint a new layer of executives to the civil rights group he co-founded.

"He was anticipating that we might be hit with some assassinations, so he wanted somebody left to assume responsibilities to keep it going," said LaFayette, who was appointed director of the Poor People's Campaign.

Taylor Branch, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years," said King didn't expect the crowds in Washington to embrace his vision of economic equality. He expected violent reprisals from troops. He might die. Yet King hoped that the sacrifice would lead to an economic bill of rights for poor people.

"When he did the Poor People's Campaign, he knew it wasn't likely to win," Branch said. "It was a witness."

But it was a witness that few people were prepared to hear, said Roger Wilkins, a U.S. Justice Department official designated as the liaison between King's final campaign and the federal government.

"By 1968, a lot of white people had gotten tired of civil rights and thinking of race," Wilkins said. "The picture of docile black people holding hands and singing freedom songs had been replaced by images of poor blacks rampaging through cities, looting and burning."

King had also lost the ear of his most important ally, President Lyndon Johnson. On April 4, 1967, exactly a year before he was assassinated, King delivered a highly publicized speech against the Vietnam War.

"Johnson was outraged," Wilkins said. "He turned sour toward King and the movement. He felt that Martin had rejected him."

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King's own organization, withdrew support from him. The group's board of directors voted against publicly backing King's opposition to Vietnam. Other black civil rights leaders criticized King as well.

"There were some black preachers telling him he was out of his element," LaFayette said.

King became depressed at times, Branch said. One night, King -- alone with a whiskey -- awakened friends in adjoining hotel rooms with his shouting: "I don't want to do this anymore! I want to go back to my little church!"

"The shameful truth is that very few people were paying attention to him," Branch said.

King mused about getting out of the civil rights business. He considered the idea of becoming dean of the chapel at Boston University, his alma mater, Branch said.

"He was constantly saying, 'Oh, I wish I could do this,' but he could never do it," Branch said. He was just possessed by the movement."

Yet King's evolution opened alliances with new supporters such as anti-war activists, said the Rev. Vincent Harding, an author and friend of King's who helped write his 1967 speech denouncing the Vietnam War.

"Some people were backing off at the same moment that there were other kinds of people who now recognized that King was not there for black people but for a new American society," Harding said. "Those who wanted to work for this new society were seeing him as a hero."

What this new American society could have looked like under King's leadership is unclear. He never got the chance to lead his final crusade.

He was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968, while helping lead sanitation workers on strike.

The Poor People's Campaign has faded from historical memory. It remains the most overlooked part of King's legacy, Wilkins said.

It remains in the shadows because King rewrote the traditional civil rights script, Wilkins said. As long as he fed Americans images of bigoted Southern sheriffs clubbing demonstrators, people could remain comfortable. But the Poor People's Campaign gave Americans a new cast of villains: themselves. Americans didn't want to look at the face of poverty, but King was going to force them, he said.

"When the movement was just about the South, you weren't rattling the status quo," Wilkins said. 'You were doing things that made Northerners feel morally superior to the South."

LaFayette last saw King on the day he was assassinated. At the time, King was still thinking big. He told LaFayette that he wanted to globalize nonviolent protests.

King may have been isolated and dejected during those last days, but that's not the man LaFayette remembers. He takes comfort from one of King's final moments: the "mountaintop" sermon King gave the night before he was assassinated.

"You could see it in his eyes; he was consumed with passion," LaFayette said. "He was prepared. They didn't take his life. He gave it up. They didn't have to run him down and try to catch him. He was standing tall despite the threats.

"You can't take a person's life who's already given it up."

By John Blake
CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/01/mlk.final.crusade/index.html)

CNN Scrubs Dobbs’ Racially Charged Comment From Transcript»

This entire "race issue" is only as issue because of the old,white men who refuse to adapt to the present. At a time in the United States where a product of a black man (gasp) and white woman in Barack Obama will soon be elected the president, they have shown no additude change. They may show tolerance for 'other' people for a time, but when they are amongst themselves, they joke and laugh at the insultation and general stereotypes of all other races. Maybe i'm the racist, maybe because of the old, white male cops that have tried so hard to put me in jail, the old, white men who just look at me crazy, the white girls fathers who become enraged when they see me with their daughter (heh, heh, that's actually quite funny), CAN i THINK that all OLD, WHiTE MEN are racist?


CNN Scrubs Dobbs’ Racially Charged Comment From Transcript»

Mar 31st, 2008 at 11:39 am
Referring to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) recent speech on race while speaking with a group of journalists last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. “still has trouble dealing with race because of a national ‘birth defect’ that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country’s very founding.” Rice added that this “birth defect” makes it “hard for us to talk about it, and hard for us to realize that it has continuing relevance for who we are today.”

When asked to respond to Rice’s remarks on the Situation Room last Friday, CNN host Lou Dobbs became agitated. TPM’s Josh Marshall noted that Dobbs explained “how he’s sick of ‘cotton pickin’ black leaders telling him how he can and can’t talk about race (he catches himself at the last minute — sorta).”
Watch it:





While it appears that Dobbs was about to say “cotton picking” (often used as a racially charged slur) in reference to Rice, he caught himself, only uttering the word “cotton.” Yet, the CNN transcript from Friday’s Situation Room has omitted the word “cotton” from Dobbs’ remarks:

DOBBS: We’ve got to be able to talk about it and I can guarantee you this, not a single one of these [the word “cotton” should appear here] — just ridiculous politicians should be the moderator on the issue of race. We have to have a far better discussion than that.


Okay. SO what you're saying, DOBBS, is the following statements, let's translate that to a clear message:

But let’s look at what Dobbs said and possible reasons why he said it. What could he have meant by that remark?

1) “As a white male, I would prefer things return to the way they used to be, with everybody else knowing their place.”

2) “We can have a discussion on race, but only by white people — that’s the only perspective that’s important.”

3) “We wouldn’t even HAVE a race problem if only people of color would just keep their mouths shut.”

4) “Just because some people have had to struggle for generations to make it in a system stacked against them, doesn’t mean they are entitled to tell ME anything about race.”

No matter how you slice, parse, and dissect Dobbs’ remarks, it still seems to come down to a white guy loudly asserting his birthright as a white guy and the entitlements it bestows.
( -misshusseinmolly)